St. Vincent Full Album

[Melissa Alvarado]

StVincent is the fourth studio album by American musician St. Vincent. It was released on February 24, 2014, in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States, through Loma Vista Recordings and Republic Records.[6][7][8] Produced by John Congleton, it features collaborations with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings drummer Homer Steinweiss and Midlake drummer McKenzie Smith. The tracks were arranged and demoed by Annie Clark in Austin, Texas and recorded at the Elmwood studio in Dallas.[4][9]

Critically acclaimed on its release, the album won a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, making St. Vincent only the second female solo artist to win the award since its inception in 1991, when it was awarded to Sinad O'Connor. It peaked at No. 12 in the Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart at No. 21, selling nearly 30,000 copies in its first week.

St. Vincent was announced on December 9, 2013, and "Birth in Reverse" was released for free download.[4][7] A second single, "Digital Witness", was released on January 6, 2014.[11] An additional release of "Digital Witness", featuring "Del Rio" as a B-side, was released in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2014.

A music video directed by Chino Moya was released on January 31, 2014 for "Digital Witness".[12][13] On February 5, Clark debuted "Prince Johnny" on the radio show KCRW: Morning Becomes Eclectic. On February 9, Clark debuted songs at fashion designer Diane von Frstenberg's runway show for New York's Fashion Week.[14] A music video directed by Willo Perron was released on December 16, 2014 for "Birth In Reverse".[15]

St. Vincent entered the US Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 12 and the UK Albums Chart at No. 21, becoming St. Vincent's highest charting album in both countries.[16][17] The album sold nearly 30,000 copies in its first week.[18]

A deluxe edition was released on February 9, 2015 in the U.K. with the album being available only for digital download in the U.S. on February 10. It featured the previously unreleased "Bad Believer"; "Del Rio", a B-side from the "Digital Witness" single and a bonus track on the Japanese edition of St. Vincent; "Digital Witness" (DARKSIDE Remix), previously released as a single; and "Piet" and "Sparrow", originally released together on a limited edition 10" pink vinyl on November 28, 2014 for Record Store Day.[19]

Clark described St. Vincent as "a party record you could play at a funeral."[20] The opening "Rattlesnake" is about an experience Clark had when walking in the desert, which she described as a "commune with nature". However, the opening line "I followed the power lines back from the road", suggests that Clark is separating herself from her dependency on artificial or digital power.[21]

Clark said she felt St. Vincent was "more confident. I'm extending a hand; I want to connect with people. Strange Mercy, which is a record I'm proud of, [was] definitely a very accurate record of my life at a certain time, but it was more about self-laceration, all the sort of internal struggle. St. Vincent is very extroverted."[26]

The album has received widespread critical acclaim. On the review aggregate site Metacritic, it scored an average score of 89 out of 100, based on 40 independent reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[28] AnyDecentMusic? collated reviews giving the album an average score of 8.6 based upon 40 reviews.[27] This score makes the record part of AnyDecentMusic?'s All-Time Top 10 albums.[38] Writing for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis awarded the album a perfect five stars, calling it "an embarrassment of fantastic songs" and "a straightforward triumph".[32]

At Rolling Stone, Jon Dolan awarded the album four stars out of five, hailing it as "her tightest, tensest, best set of songs to date, with wry, twisty beats pushing her lovably ornery melodies toward grueling revelations" and noting that "the playful way these songs contort makes pain feel like a party."[36] Alex Denny of The Fly rated the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, describing it as "her most ebullient, ambitiously styled music to date".[39] NME, The Guardian, musicOMH, Entertainment Weekly, and Slant Magazine named it the best album of 2014.

Given the fangs she bares on St. Vincent, it seems like Clark could take that snake, easily. Over the course of four albums, many early-career guest spots, and a 2012 collaboration with David Byrne, Clark has been focusing her vision and sharpening her music's edges; were it not for Google image search, it would be easy to convince yourself that you merely dreamed those days when she wore butterfly wings with Sufjan Stevens and blithely flowing robes with the Polyphonic Spree. With each release, Clark sounds less like anybody but herself, and more forcefully embraces a darkness that was quietly stirring in even her earliest songs. "You don't mean that, say you're sorry," she chimed in a creepy, Bride of Chucky voice on her still-magnificent debut single, "Now, Now". But the smirking overlord that stares out from the cover of St. Vincent does not apologize, not for any of the unpleasantries she utters through gritted teeth, nor the much nastier things she blurts out her fingers.

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The Golden Crystal Kingdom was produced by Shooter Jennings, recorded and mixed by David Spreng and mastered by Pete Lyman. All original songs written by Vincent Neil Emerson. Musicians on the album include Emerson (vocals, acoustic and electric guitar), Jennings (piano, synthesizers), Jaime Douglas (drums), Jon Graboff (pedal steel), Ted Russell Kamp (bass) and John Schreffler Jr. (electric guitar).

Although Rhonda is a bluegrass artist, and there are touches of bluegrass on a few of the tracks, this basically is a modern traditional country album, with fiddles, steel guitar and truly outstanding vocals, both individually and in harmony with each other.

(Total Pleasure)

Are we finally seeing the real Annie Clark? Replacing alter egos with raw immediacy, she delivers one of her best albums: restlessly inventive and packed with ideas

(Total Pleasure)

Are we finally seeing the real Annie Clark? Replacing alter egos with raw immediacy, she delivers one of her best albums: restlessly inventive and packed with ideas

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current. Hey, some exciting news regarding St. Vincent. I recently read a profile in Mojo magazine, a little teaser about a new album on the way from St. Vincent. And so I only know a little bit so far, and I know where to go for some more information. In fact, I'm going to go to the source: I have Annie Clark, St. Vincent, on the line with me. Hi, how are you?

Jill Riley: Exactly. Why make assumptions and try to guess when I can talk directly to the artist? St. Vincent, so yes, you have announced that you've got a new record coming. And I know what it's called. I know just a little bit about it. So let's jump into it. The record is called All Born Screaming. I wonder if you could tell me about the new album and where that name comes from.

St. Vincent: Well, the title of the record is the title of the final song on the record. And I could have called it any number of things, I guess, but I liked the idea of "All Born Screaming" because it's like, it conveys the ecstasy and the agony and everything that it means to be alive, which is like, if we're born screaming, that's a good thing, because it means we're alive. If we're born screaming, we're also like, we're kind of all born in protest. So I thought it summed up a lot of the themes and the kind of journey of the record.

Jill Riley: How difficult was that for you to go, "OK, that is done," or "This song is complete." Or "I don't need to add anything or take anything away from this." Did you find that to be a real difficulty? Or did you find that you really liked the idea of self-producing?

St. Vincent: Well, it's all about honing your own instincts. And if you're the one who's saying, "Yes, I know in my soul that this is good enough and this is what I'm trying to say." And, of course, it's always a process. That's what the work is, is just finding it. But I think the hardest thing about it was, to me, there were songs that were just, they were delicate, in that they didn't want to be performed. So there are songs on the record that I sang by myself, you know, Electric Lady studios, Studio B or whatever, just in that room by myself at night 100 times. There's songs that I, you know, reworked 18 times, and the thing about that is just, it is, you know, a little more tedious, and you definitely have those moments of spinning your wheels and, and wondering if anything is any good. But I think that's where the exciting part is. It's a Bowie quote, but he talks about being if you're a little bit out of your depth, if your feet aren't quite touching the bottom, then that's how you know you're onto something that's exciting. And high stakes and real.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with St. Vincent. All Born Screaming is the name of the new record. It is on the way this spring, April 26. Now, you didn't make the record completely on your own. Can you talk about some of the musicians that you brought in on this record?

St. Vincent: Absolutely! Well, one, I've got a great engineer, Cian Riordan, who I worked with on Daddy's Home, and who mixed that record and this one. It's a tight little Wrecking Crew. I called in my buddy Dave Grohl to play drums on a couple tracks, and he rips so hard. Josh Freese is also on drums.

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